


Helping

by kinkandquiet



Series: Lyndon and Alex [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Desperation, Kink, M/M, Omorashi, Paruresis, Pee shy, Watersports, shy bladder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:42:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6804973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinkandquiet/pseuds/kinkandquiet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyndon can't pee. Alex just wants to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helping

Beneath a sky thick with dark clouds, an evergreen canopy heavy with rain, a sheet of water-resistant canvas and the thinnest blanket known to man, Alex was trapped in a tent with the thing that had broken his heart.

The thing that had broken his heart shuddered with cold. It curled softly inward. Its nose brushed Alex's shoulder and it stilled suddenly. 

"Really?" Alex said to the canvas over their heads.

The cold nose withdrew. 

The thing that had broken his heart was more properly known as Lyndon. Alex preferred not to think of him that way. He preferred not to think of Lyndon at all. He preferred it, but in truth he rarely managed it. Lyndon was all Alex thought about from his apartment across town, from his desk across their shared university course, and from six inches away in the tent they now shared.

Blankets shuffled beside him as Lyndon squirmed, widening the distance between their bodies so he could curl up without touching Alex.

Alex looked down at his blond head and tried to hate him. He managed a mild resentment and the same hurt and yearning that was always there when he saw Lyndon now.

"Are you cold?" Alex asked. He didn't know why.

"Yes." 

Lyndon's voice was muffled by his own arms. Of course he was cold. He was always cold. Flames roaring in Alex's fireplace, thick blanket wrapped around them both, Lyndon had still been cold. Alex tried to swallow the memory of it. He didn't quite manage.

"...Good."

Lyndon, damn him, laughed. 

The mild resentment Alex had managed to work up disintegrated. He sighed and returned his gaze heavenward. 

There, beneath the clouds and the canopy and the canvas and the blanket, it felt as if they were drowning in deep forest, alone in wilderness, the only people left on earth. In actuality, the closest pair of students from their class was a mile's walk. Each pair of students surveyed a square mile of land. Alex didn't think their instructor planned for the storm--it hadn't been in the weather report--but he also wouldn't put it past the Survivor-enthusiast. All part of the learning experience, he might have said.

Alex was learning that lying a few inches from the boy he had once had a right to kiss hurt like hell.

He hadn't actually needed to know that. 

Or rather, he had already known that.

Beside him, shivers periodically rocked Lyndon's lean frame. Alex knew every muscle and plane of that body, could imagine the goosebumps on his supple skin without lifting the blanket. 

Lyndon's teeth clicked, a cold chatter that he tensed his jaw to prevent.

Alex closed his eyes.

"Fine. Come on. Quit squirming and just come over here."

In the silence following his words, Lyndon inched towards him with exaggerated caution, closing half the space between them and no more. Once, he could have coiled so tightly into Alex's body they might as well have been one person. Now he touched like one of them was electric.

Clenching his jaw against Lyndon's new-found wariness, Alex closed the remainder of the space between them. He pulled Lyndon into his arms more sharply than necessary, the curve of his arms all muscle memory from a thousand nights no longer shared. 

Lyndon stayed tense like a board. It was like trying to cuddle plywood. Frostbitten plywood.

Awkward minutes passed.

"You're practically giving me splinters. Relax, man."

"I am," Lyndon lied, shifting taut muscles in the circle of Alex's arms. "Just... don't touch me, okay?"

A crease formed between Alex's eyebrows. He looked at their entangled bodies. "Er?"

"No, I just mean," Lyndon struggled for words and finally came up with, "I don't want to have sex."

Alex stared openly at his ex, the thing that had broken his heart. 

Lyndon stared back. He set his jaw as if prepared for an argument.

"You... We're not even together anymore!"

"What do you call this?" 

"Unfortunate! I call it fucking unfortunate."

"Oh." Lyndon seemed to think this over. "Yes, I suppose it's unlucky."

"You think I expect some friends with benefits crap?" Alex's head swam at the sheer incredibility of it. He could hear a touch of hysteria in his own voice. "We're not even fucking friends!"

"That's--"

"Shut up." He brought his hands to his face. "You're unbelievable, you know that?"

"As long as we're clear." Lyndon shrugged.

Alex breathed out. He tried to get a hold of himself. He was no fan of hook-up culture and Lyndon knew it. He cared too passionately and too obviously. He cared too much, even now.

"You're safe with me." He said, and then, "You've always been safe with me."

Lyndon seemed to take it honestly. In the next moments he relaxed into Alex's arms. He started to shiver freely. His cold nose came to rest against Alex's shoulder.

Alex thought about that for what felt like a long time. Lyndon was squirming in his arms like he still couldn't find a comfortable position. As the flood came down around their tent, Lyndon tossed and turned. Alex wondered if at some point he'd make Lyndon feel unsafe. He wondered if that was why he'd been broken up with a month earlier without preamble, without warning, what felt like merely moments before he'd planned on asking Lyndon to move in with him. 

In the circle of his arms, Lyndon rolled over. "We should be working."

"It's raining."

"Professor Neal wouldn't care." This, Alex had to agree, was probably true.

"We'll get up early and collect the data we can," He tried reasoning. Lyndon flexed his toes near Alex's leg. It tickled. "Right now, it's dark, wet, and cold. The project isn't even that big a part of our final grade."

"I'm going back out." 

"You are not."

Lyndon levered himself up. He felt blindly around the tent, probably for their supplies, half of which were still out under a tarp in the rain.

"You can't be serious."

"Toss me the compass?"

A flashlight switched on. Lyndon looked a bit paler and significantly more tense than usual. 

Alex frowned as he handed over the compass they'd been issued. The beam from the flashlight skittered around the tent as Lyndon began working on the tent flap’s plastic zipper.

"Of course you're serious." Alex flopped back down and gave the tent a hopeless look. "You're really going out in this? You'll be soaked."

"That's fine," Lyndon assured him. He split the tent open. 

The air outside was frigid. The sound of the rain changed as it pelted Lyndon's back. He wasn't even wearing a waterproof jacket, just a thick cotton hoodie. He was going to freeze out there. He zipped the tent up behind him.

And Alex was alone. 

He rolled over and buried his nose in the blanket that still smelled faintly of Lyndon's shampoo. "Fucking idiot," he said, and pressed his lips to the cloth as if kissing the boy who had left and would keep leaving him.

\-----

By the time the crunch of soggy leaves signaled Lyndon's return it was well and truly late. Even without the unexpected storm their camp would have been set up by now, the day's work done. Lyndon had been gone so long Alex had had time to eat a makeshift dinner of granola bars and bottled water. He hadn't wanted to leave the tent for anything else. He was sitting up, working on a Sudoku with his flashlight when Lyndon returned to their tent. 

Alex put his Sudoku down. "Everything go all right?"

"Fine." Lyndon crawled into the tent. He flopped onto his sleeping bag and didn't move.

Alex stared at him for a long moment. "What happened?"

"I slipped. Over an igneous outcrop."

"I hope you mapped it." Cold air was coming in from the tent flat Lyndon hadn't bothered to zip up behind him. It was still raining hard and the storm showed no signs of letting up soon.

"I mapped it." 

After another long moment, Lyndon worked up the energy to make a halfhearted grab for the open tent flap. When Alex pushed his hand away it was cold as ice. Lyndon really needed gloves. That, and a sense of self-preservation.

Well, the gloves they could work on.

"I'll get it," Alex tilted his head to the closure. "I was just about to brave the elements anyway."

"You'll get wet," Lyndon said. He had apparently lacked this knowledge hours before when he'd left the tent himself. 

"I'm going to piss." Alex folded the thin flannel blanket double over Lyndon's soaked skin as he sat up. "I'll be back in a minute."

Lyndon made a soft sound and curled into a ball.

Alex paused, frowning.

"What?"

The coil that was his ex-boyfriend said nothing.

"Okay. Do you want anything from the supplies while I'm out?"

"Just go."

Alex left the tent.

His feet probably hurt, Alex mused. Or maybe he'd actually done some damage to himself when he'd slipped on the rocks. It was cold enough to put anyone in a foul mood. 

Alex pissed against a tree not far from the camp, sighing with relief despite the frigid weather, and returned to the tent with the first aid kit from their supplies. 

When he aimed the flashlight towards him, Lyndon was still wearing his soaking wet clothes. He'd moved only enough to get his elbow stuck in the soggy fabric of his hoodie. He wasn't moving anymore. 

"You're cold. You should change." Alex zipped the tent up behind him, avoiding shining the light in Lyndon's eyes as he surveyed the scene before him. 

"My arm is stuck," Lyndon complained. He made no move to right this.

Alex snorted. "No, you just gave up half way out of your sweater."

Lyndon laid still as Alex came to sit beside him. He was dripping. They both were, though Alex was smart enough to remove his wet things as soon as he'd settled in the tent. 

He paused at his jeans before shrugging mentally, stripping those off his legs too. Lyndon had seen him naked enough times and Alex had never been shy to begin with. Lyndon was the shy one, which might have explained why he was still wearing his wet clothes.

"Babe--" Alex started, and then could say nothing more.

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. His eyes stung. He held a sock in his right hand.

Those tender moments were gone. Now they were just two people. Strangers who knew each other better than they knew themselves. 

"Lyndon," he corrected himself. "You're getting the blanket wet. You should take off your wet clothes."

"I don't feel good," Lyndon responded softly.

It didn't mean he felt ill.

Lyndon got like this. Small. Alex had never known quite what to call it, but had always treated it with the gentleness that vulnerability deserved in his lover. Lyndon got cold, and then he got depressed about being cold, and then he couldn't be roused to put the effort into warming himself up. It was deeply idiosyncratic and deeply familiar. 

"I'll help you, all right?" With careful hands, Alex reached across the tent and took the empty sleeve of the hoodie. 

"I've nothing to change into."

"Doesn't matter."

"I don't want anything."

"This isn't about sex," Alex tugged at the wet mass of fabric, feeling fond despite the lump in his throat. "It's not like we haven't slept naked before."

He loosened the fabric around Lyndon's right arm, pausing only to lean the flashlight against the first aid kit so there was at least some ambient light in the tent. Once the hoodie was pulled over Lyndon's head, Alex found the shirt underneath was equally soaked.

Lyndon allowed him to remove his shirt and then his jeans, pliant under Alex's hands and only making a soft sound Alex couldn't quite parse when he reached for Lyndon's zipper. His underwear Alex left on, though they were as wet as the rest of his clothes. He'd left his own boxers on. Thin fabric would dry quickly, he reasoned.

"Did you hurt yourself when you fell?" Alex asked now that Lyndon was fully undressed. He stroked the thin blanket over Lyndon's cold arms like a towel, only then remembering he'd brought the first aid kit with him. 

"No." Lyndon rubbed a hand over his face, seeming to regain his bearings now that he was at least slightly less frozen. "No, it was nothing. I scarped my knee like a little kid." 

Alex dug around in the first aid kit. He waved a band-aid triumphantly. 

Lyndon's skinny legs shook with suppressed laughter as Alex applied the band-aid to his scraped knee. 

"You care too much about me," Lyndon said mildly as Alex surveyed his work. "I don't even care that much about me."

"I know you don't." Alex smiled tightly and squeezed the water from Lyndon's hair.

He laid down, on top of his sleeping bag in deference to the hard ground but beneath the thin blanket, one arm stretched out in invitation. He kicked Lyndon's ankle.

"Feel any better?"

"Not so cold."

"Good."

Lyndon rolled toward him and the lump in Alex's throat dropped to his stomach. He lifted his arm and adjusted himself around the all too familiar heat of this body he knew so well. 

While Alex was settling in to sleep, Lyndon twisted around in his arms, growing dissatisfied with each position after a few minutes spent lying in its embrace. Alex yawned into his wet hair, trying to pass on some of his own calm and exhaustion. Lyndon had to be exhausted after the hiking they'd done together and the long hours of data collection he'd done by himself. Still, he squirmed.

It wasn't unusual. Once, they had shared a bed every night they could. Lyndon tossed and turned and never seemed to sleep more than an hour at a time. At first, Alex had thought him uncomfortable, but with time he had come to think of it as simply the way Lyndon was: perpetually uncomfortable. 

That night he fell asleep once, then twice, then a third time, only to be woken by the tireless movement of the warm body curled into his. He woke up once with Lyndon's face buried in-between his neck and shoulder, as if seeking comfort, and combed his hand through Lyndon's drying hair with a yawn. Lyndon reared back, and the tossing and turning continued. 

The next time he woke up, Lyndon was shaking him.

"Move, move, move."

Alex jerked fully awake this time, feeling the reverberation of movement in Lyndon's body. Their positions had shifted and he was pinning Lyndon down with his weight.

"Move your leg," Lyndon said, his voice shaky. "Please move your leg."

Alex rolled abruptly off of him, taking the blanket with him. He felt for the flashlight in the dark and found Lyndon curling into a ball just as he switched it on.

"What did I do?" He asked, his throat scratchy with sleep. "Did I knee you or something?"

"Something--like that." Lyndon sounded shaken. 

His back was to Alex, so Alex had to push himself up, shining the flashlight down to find Lyndon curled up nude with his fingers at his lips, his other hand tucked between his thighs. Alex winced. Once he would have kissed those lips. 

"Shit, sorry. I'm an asshole when I'm sleeping."

He dropped one hand on the bare expanse of Lyndon's back, finding strained muscles as he rubbed a hand over them.

"You're not. You're sweet. You hold me."

"Not anymore." Any effort to keep the bitterness from his tone would have been pointless. It was too thick in his heart and throat.

The muscles of Lyndon's back shifted away from his touch. From his vantage point leaning on his elbow, Alex could see Lyndon's fingertips at his mouth, the pads of his fingers curling between his lips as he almost but didn't quite suck on them.

Naked, his blanket inadvertently stolen and using his sleeping bag for padding, there was very little keeping Alex's eye from roaming over this body that was so missed. 

The planes and curves of Lyndon's form were quivering with a tension Alex couldn't understand. Every angle of him was achingly familiar, though his lower stomach was a hard curve between his slender hips. Lyndon had always been a slim thing. His right arm was wrapped tightly around his chest, the other hand pressed to his lips as he worried at his fingertips. 

Alex let his hand fall on Lyndon's forehead and found no fever.

"Lyn...?" Alex could hear the uncertainty in his own tone. He let his hand travel from forehead to cheek, finding little evidence of a fever there either. Lyndon's throat bobbed under his hand, and his heart beat in his chest like a wild drummer.

When Alex's palm smoothed lower over his body he felt the shape of Lyndon's concave stomach and the unexpected curve in his abdomen.

Lyndon rolled onto his front so suddenly Alex almost had his hand crushed. His only warning was a choked sound before Lyndon splayed stiffly into the sleeping bag, breathing thickly.

"Did I just hurt you?" Alex felt hopelessly confused, his hand hovering inches over the mostly naked body beside him. "Is your stomach all right?" 

Lyndon shook his head, or might have, his face blocked by his hair. Every muscle in his body seemed to be mid-spasm. It made Alex ache just to look at. He didn't understand what was going on.

Lyndon's hips shifted against the sleeping bag, moving first right and the left. His fingers curled into fists around the material. His toes curled and his thighs and back tensed.

He hiccuped and Alex jumped, startled back when Lyndon flung himself half up, one arm still wrapped protectively around his body and the other struck out towards the tent flap. Alex watched as he felt in the dark for the opening. His fingers grasped the zipper, giving a single tug before his hand dropped to his lap in defeat, where Alex noticed the front of his briefs were still damp.

Or, not _still_ , but newly damp.

Alex felt his mouth open as Lyndon squirmed. One wrist pressed against the front of his damp underwear where Alex had already seen and the other grappled for purchase on his thigh, his legs splayed open but his ankles crossed. 

Alex stared.

It was obvious why Lyndon was moving around so much.

"Go and pee," Alex said, feeling a funny smile spreading his mouth.

Lyndon made an urgent, pained noise.

"Before you pee in the tent."

"I wouldn't do that." Lyndon responded, sounding horrified at the idea. His hands whipped up to his chest, hugging himself. This had the unfortunate effect of revealing the quarter size wet spot on his briefs, but Alex had already seen.

"You're bursting."

Lyndon bit his lip and leaned forward. "I'm fine."

"You're clearly not."

"I don't... I'm fine. I'll be fine and I don't need... things," Lyndon finished lamely. He was shaking.

Taking pity, Alex reached for the parted tent flap himself. Lyndon's words drew him up short.

"You wouldn't--oh, don't. Stop."

Alex paused with his hand on the zipper, uncertain if that 'stop' had been meant for him, and if so, why. 

"Stop what?"

Lyndon took a gasping breath. His hands returned to his crotch. He rocked forward and back. He didn't respond.

When it became apparent Lyndon wasn't going to respond, too wrapped up in his own personal desperation, Alex swiftly finished unzipping the tent. Clearly Lyndon was desperate, and whatever else he wanted to say it would have to come second.

But the rush of cold rain that came with the open tent flap didn't seem to comfort Lyndon, which Alex couldn't blame him for. There was nothing to be done for it, though.

Instead of springing to his feet, as Alex might have done had he been that desperate, Lyndon shifted and took up rocking forward and back with twice the speed, a ragged sound leaving his lips. 

Alex held the tent flap back. "Go on. You can go."

"Please don't make me."

"Don't make you... what?"

"In the rain. I can't...I can't take it, I just can't. Please don't make me, Alex."

"I wasn't suggesting..." Alex felt around behind himself blindly. "My coat is dry. You can borrow it--you can have it. I'm not going to shove you out of the tent naked."

Lyndon ignored the offered coat, his arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. 

"I know you hate me," Lyndon murmured. His body was trembling. "Just please don't make me go out there. I can't do it. I really can't, I..." He doubled over, thighs quivering.

Alex moved to zip up the tent flap so quickly he dropped the coat.

"Is that better?"

Lyndon nodded. Alex watched how his body was coiled around his bladder.

"You're... sure that's better?"

"It doesn't matter," Lyndon could barely be heard over the sound of heavy rain splashing the tent's fabric in relentless waves. "Out there, or in here, or anywhere. It just doesn't make any difference."

"I don't understand," Alex admitted.

"I don't want you to." Lyndon grappled at the front of his briefs and squeezed himself. Alex looked away, feeling a blush on his cheeks. What one earth was Lyndon on about? When he looked back, Lyndon had folded over further, his hands hidden in the crease of his body.

Alex stared at the desperate, pained form of his ex and tried to make sense of the situation.

"You're afraid of the storm," Alex hazarded a guess. "I'll come with you if you want."

Lyndon spoke to his knees. "I'm not afraid of the storm."

"The forest at night, then."

"No."

"Your leg hurts badly from the fall," Alex tried. "You need help standing? I'll help."

"I don't need help."

"I'm going to help anyway." Alex said. "I'd be more help to you if you'd let me know why you're so upset."

"Then please stop," Lyndon begged. "I won't tell you, so just--stop. You aren't cruel."

"I'm not," Alex agreed, reaching for Lyndon's shoulders. "And I don't hate you. I love you. You hate yourself."

His shoulders were so very tense when Alex lay his hand there. The line of his back, fully exposed by the position he'd twisted himself into, looked knotted with tension all along his spine. Outside, rain still pattered. Thunder roared, and Lyndon made a sound like he was losing control, though Alex could not see.

"Why do you torture yourself?" Lyndon's apparent desperation had translated into a desperate kind of sadness in Alex's chest. He tried to breathe around it. 

"Maybe you're right," Lyndon barely rose his voice above the rain. "Maybe I hate myself."

Something like anger gripped him and he shook his head. Lyndon interrupted him before he could speak. It was probably best. What was he going to say? _I wish you cared for yourself like I care for you._

"Alex. I can't control it."

"Then go outside and--"

"I can't control myself. I can't control _this_."

Lyndon writhed from where he'd been doubled over, a soft sound escaping his lips as he wrenched himself up, his legs trembled as one hand flew from his crotch to grasp for purchase on the hard ground. The front of his briefs glistened with new wetness, his stomach sucked in suddenly, revealing the swell of his bladder in his lower abdomen, and every part of his body seemed to flinch and squirm simultaneously.

He moaned, and it seemed as if oceans must he been colliding in his bladder for all the trouble it was causing him.

"Shh," Alex found himself murmuring. "I'm sorry. You don't have to explain this now. You can't, can you?"

Guilt washed over him. His need to understand did not take priority here, that should have been more than obvious, and yet he'd been letting it. He offered his open arms now. 

Lyndon came quite suddenly to rest against him, though rest must have been the last thing on his mind. He didn't relax, the cast-iron tension in his muscles painful just to hold, his thighs quivering and hips shifting. Everything above his waist was tied in knots and everything below was in endless, urgent motion.

"Let me help you."

Alex was good at helping Lyndon, he had thought. Usually, all Lyndon needed was some basic kindness. He didn't permit enough of it towards himself.

He found himself manipulating Lyndon's straining body. His briefs had dried from their earlier soaking but glistened in a wet spot on the front, partially transparent and crinkled where Lyndon had one hand squeezing his crotch. Alex brushed his white clenched knuckles gently, but Lyndon didn't loosen his hold, letting out a cry and gripping himself. 

"Let go," Alex said. "Just for a second. You can do it."

When Alex brushed his knuckles again, Lyndon did let go. He made himself grip his thigh, fingertips leaving half-moons on his smooth skin. At the same moment, a waterfall burst though his underwear, rivulets streaming over his thighs. Alex froze. They'd be sleeping in a puddle, he thought, just as Lyndon managed to contain himself.

Shaking, Lyndon's hand shot back to his wet crotch, which startled Alex into action. He peeled the underwear down before Lyndon could squeeze himself again, slipping the wet fabric over Lyndon’s legs and curled toes. He left the soaked briefs in a heap near the entrance to the tent. 

When he turned around, Lyndon was holding himself again, his cock freed from his underwear but not the iron grip of his fist. 

It wasn't enough. The next moment Lyndon let out a ragged gasp and his penis jerked with a stream of liquid. The two of them were close enough now that urine splashed Alex's naked thigh in a warm rush. Lyndon went pink with shame, but he still wrapped himself around Alex, the back of one hand and the damp warmth of his penis pressing into Alex's thigh.

"Let me help you," he said again, brushing Lyndon's hair and pressing his lips to Lyndon's damp forehead, unable to ignore his distress. "You have to pee, that's all."

"I can't. I don't. I just don't." As Lyndon was protesting, Alex could feel the wet warmth of another leak. Lyndon squirmed and gasped.

"You really do," Alex's voice came out shaky and he tried to gather himself. It was strange to see Lyndon come so undone. "You have to pee so bad. Who are you fooling?"

"I can't. I'm trapped here and there's no place so I don't. I don't have to."

"You're raving," Alex told him, and predicted the next leak by the tense and spasm of every muscle wrapped in his arms. "It's all right. We'll sort you out. There's an empty bottle. Are you shy?"

He hadn't, he thought, ever gotten stuck in traffic when Lyndon had had to pee, or been caught desperate after crawling the bars at night. He hadn't, Alex realized dimly, ever seen Lyndon urinate.

But whether or not Lyndon was pee shy hardly mattered now, Alex thought as he felt around for his empty water bottle. Fully nude and wrapped around Alex like a desperate limpet, Alex could feel the spurts and stops of Lyndon's bladder about to give up. It seemed like a miracle that Lyndon could hold on long enough for Alex to uncap the bottle and position it between their bodies, the rim touching the head of his penis.

He expected the thunderous sound of liquid splashing plastic immediately, like a faucet turning on full blast. Instead, Lyndon moaned and hitched his hips away so Alex had to reposition the bottle.

"Stop," Lyndon begged him the second time he repositioned the empty water bottle and Lyndon shuddered with need. Finally the sound of liquid hitting plastic, but contrary to Alex's expectations, it was as if a faucet had been flicked on and right back off again. Lyndon was panting in his arms. 

His hips jerked and the next time Alex tried to position the bottle, Lyndon's hand was in his way. His fist curled tightly around his penis, his thumb covering the tip. Alex tried to brush his hand away, to guide his penis back towards the waiting bottle, and earned a trickle of urine on his hand for the trouble. Lyndon gripped himself more tightly with a ragged apology.

"It's all right. You can pee in the bottle," Alex tried comforting him, but Lyndon only shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut.

"I can't."

After long moments of Lyndon's restraint, Alex removed the empty bottle from between their bodies, allowing Lyndon his grappling hold unimpeded as he let the bottle roll away.

"You can't." He repeated. "You can't urinate in the storm, or in a bottle."

Lyndon gave a quick jerk of his head.

"Then where can you?"

A shake of the head.

"Nowhere?" Alex frowned, trying to parse this.

"If... if the bath runs," Lyndon said into his silence. "And you are not visiting me, and the neighbors through the walls are very quiet, and I am desperate, then in my own apartment I can, sometimes."

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes not." Lyndon was shaking with something other than desperation and cold now.

That, to Alex, sounded like a serious problem. Possibly a medical problem interacting with the iron will Lyndon exerted over himself in all things and his tendency towards intense anxiety at the strangest moments.

He felt as if he'd been punched in the gut when the longest wave of urgency yet seemed to overtake Lyndon, and all of the sudden he was urinating full force against Alex's thigh. It was a torrent, and then it was over, restrained by that same iron will. Alex was left wet, and Lyndon was practically sobbing.

"You'll piss all over us both," Alex tried to speak gently. "If you don't let yourself go."

"I _know_."

He knew and he couldn't control it, Alex surmised. It was what he had said earlier, and there was very little Lyndon would admit to not having full control over. 

Well, Alex thought, he could still help.

Shifting them both sideways with as much care as he could muster, Alex salvaged one of the sleeping bags along with the thin blanket and shoved them to the side of the tent. The shift in position and the effects of gravity had Lyndon whimpering, and Alex murmured to him in genuine apology, adjusting them still until Lyndon was sitting atop him, the vice of his thighs now clamped around Alex's hips. Alex had his arms circling Lyndon's upper body as he couldn't seem to rely on his lower half to hold still. 

Lyndon gasped for breath, his bladder adjusting to the new position. He squeezed his thighs frantically over Alex's hips and leaked again. This time he wet Alex's boxers. It was a supremely odd feeling. 

It was not an unfamiliar view like this, nor unappreciated, though usually Alex would have been fully undressed at this point. Lyndon was entirely naked and the swell of his bladder looked strained and painful above his penis. 

"I'm not being cruel," Alex said, and rested his palm there.

"Ah!" Lyndon's hips jumped backward, his body moving away from even this gentle touch. His eyes are huge in his face. Warm wetness soaked into the thin fabric of Alex's boxers.

"All right?" Alex asked, his palm coming to hover over Lyndon's bladder while his other hand steadied Lyndon at the small of his back.

Lyndon seemed unable to speak, though his lips parted to an urgent noise.

"All right," Alex repeated. "Tell me if I'm not helping."

His hand came to rest a second time below Lyndon's navel. His bladder was rock hard, a distended ball between his hips. Alex cupped his hand over its shape, his fingers stroking the curve of it. When Lyndon didn't draw back from his touch, Alex applied the precise pressure of his palm.

Lyndon's body responded like a wave crashing on the shore. His abdomen cramped under Alex's hand and urine poured out of him like a bottle tipped over. The stream lasted for a good six seconds before Lyndon could bring himself back under control. They were both soaked at once, Alex's briefs fully wet as if he'd pissed himself instead of this unusual arrangement. It didn't bother him, he found. He might have been turned on by it, had Lyndon not looked like he was about to collapse.

"Hey, woah." His hand at Lyndon's back stiffened, but instead of jerking sideways or collapsing back, Lyndon doubled over. It had the startlingly intimate effect of pushing their foreheads together. Lyndon was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and Alex slid his hand up his back and over his shoulders to brush the sweat-tangled hair out of his face. 

Lyndon's eyes were squeezed shut and his neck glimmered with sweat. Between their bodies his hand was curled and trembling.

"You really can't let go."

Lyndon's eyes fluttered open. Their position grew only more painfully intimate. Alex bit his lip against it. He didn't look away, letting Lyndon's blue eyes seek his out.

"You make everything so complicated."

Lyndon swallowed but he didn't look away.

"You tie yourself up in knots."

Between their bodies, wet heat bloomed, liquid gushed audibly, and Lyndon gasped and squeezed his eyes shut tight, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. Alex brushed it away.

"You don't have to do this. You can go outside. If you're shy, I won't follow you. You can let go, Lyn."

"I can't." Lyndon shivered and refused to open his eyes again. "You should go. You shouldn't stay here with me like this. I'm sorry, I am. I shouldn't have come. I thought I could hold it."

"Hell no," Alex said, his disbelief more to do with Lyndon thinking he'd leave him in such obvious need than the fact that it was freezing rain in the middle of the forest at night--which probably said something about Alex, he had to admit. "I'm here. I'm helping you. We've got this."

Whatever Lyndon might have said to this, Alex didn't know, because Alex was slipping his hand down between their bodies again, his fingers sliding over warm skin and then the damp curve of Lyndon's bladder, and Lyndon was gasping, their faces so close his lips brushed Alex's cheek. 

"That's it. That's good." Even as he felt Lyndon reigning in his shattered control, Alex encouraged another leak from his overfull bladder with soft words and a softer pressure.

"That hurts," Lyndon moaned.

Alex drew his hand back, giving Lyndon a break and allowing himself to brush both hands through Lyndon's sweat dampened hair. 

"Do you want me to stop?"

He kept his hands above Lyndon's waist, and it was only seconds before Lyndon started to squirm again, his thighs flexing around Alex's hips and a leak, only a few drops without the pressure of Alex's hand, escaped from him. He bit his lips hard, his cheeks stained permanently pink.

Alex waited, and Lyndon's legs began to tremble, his muscles weak from continued tension. Another dribble, and Lyndon reigned himself back in, but he moaned as he did so and shifted to bury his face in the fold of Alex's neck and shoulder. Only then would he let himself speak.

"No, please, I... I can't take it. I have to, so bad. I can't stand it anymore."

Alex's hand stroked down his tense body, trying to soothe the muscles or the mind they were attached to.

"Anything you need, Lyn. Just tell me."

Lyndon let out a laugh like a sob. "I need to pee! I need to... I need you." 

The space between them had dissipated to nothing now the Lyndon was curling into him, hiding his face and his shame. Skin pressed against wet skin. Alex worked one hand between their hips and wiggled his fingers. Lyndon let out a cry and gushed onto his leg. 

"Does that help?" He spoke into Lyndon's ear. Lyndon nodded so frantically he knocked Alex's chin with the top of his head. 

Yes, it helped. Whatever iron control Lyndon exerted over his own body, Alex was still the only one welcome to take it from him. 

Though Alex had stopped, another leak came hot and wet, soaking his leg this time. Lyndon made a mortified noise into his shoulder. Alex soothed him.

"You need this. Your body can't help it."

"Please, please yes."

Between their bodies, Alex was playing his fingers over the taut curve in Lyndon's belly. He was careful, curious but concerned by the shape Lyndon had gotten himself into. With every spurt of relief, and every flex of control, Alex kept up a soft litany into his ear. "That's good. You're so good. Let go, let me take care of you. I'll make you feel better now, I want to."

It was the most curiously intimate thing Alex had ever done with him, and there was nothing he could think of that he would not do for Lyndon. He let his hand stroke Lyndon's bladder, trailing his thumb between the dip of his hip and the swell in his abdomen. He stroked Lyndon's overfull bladder as he encouraged relief from his body one leak at a time.

Relief did not come quickly. Even as Alex progressed from feeling, to caressing, to massaging, to palpating his bladder, Lyndon never exploded, like Alex was half expecting when he'd so clearly passed his limit, but only leaked in rapid streams that stopped just as suddenly. 

He kept his face buried in Alex's neck, his forehead sweaty and his hands curling bruises into Alex's shoulders. Alex kept massaging his bladder, making arcs with the press of his thumbs and earning shivers and spurts. 

Alex had been pressing on his bladder for what felt like centuries, and still with every touch there was another hiss, the telltale warmth blooming against his own skin. Every touch drew more out of Lyndon, who moaned with the extended mixture of desperation and relief. 

After a half hour, when Alex pressed his palm over Lyndon's now flat stomach and stroked his way down, he earned a sigh and nothing more.

His hand found its way to Lyndon back, slick with sweat. Both of them were breathing hard, though they'd moved little, and the fabric beneath them was soaked.

"Is that enough?" Alex's voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat, stroking the muscles of Lyndon back with his exhausted arm.

Lyndon didn't lift his head from Alex's shoulder. He'd been curled over Alex's body so long his muscles must have been straining worse than Alex's were, and his own body felt like jelly. 

"Are you comfortable?" Alex tried again.

Shakily, Lyndon nodded.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed back. The sleeping bag made a squelching noise. He laughed. "Fuck."

The sliver of space he'd created between their bodies left Lyndon blinking, as if newly awoken. He drew back and looked at Alex in quiet wonder, his cheeks still pink and his eyes heavy lidded.

"Thank you," Lyndon breathed.

Alex couldn't help feeling they'd completed some sort of marathon. He felt giddy and found himself grinning. "Any time."

Lyndon blinked, opened his mouth, and found no words waiting to be spoken.

Alex couldn't blame him. The situation, something he still didn't entirely understand despite his willingness to help, hardly had a script they could follow. It was too strange and too new. 

Alex stretched and breathed, letting his eyes fall shut in pleasure, not questioning too much why he felt so relieved himself. He smelled rank. His arm was tired. He was wet, and cold, and Lyndon must have been worse off.

"We're gonna have to move." Alex said when they'd laid there for long enough that he was in serious danger of falling into a pleasant sleep before they'd cleaned. 

Lyndon stood like a colt, his legs unsteady beneath him. He reached blindly for support, finding none on the slick walls of the tent. Alex drew himself up, offering himself as a crutch. He was satisfied when Lyndon leaned into him, nose to shoulder, and said again, "Thank you."

Alex made quick work of everything in the tent that had been soaked. He opened the tent flap and dragged out the sleeping bag they'd been on top of, stepping out of his wet boxers, a barrier which had been little use with how quickly and painfully intimate everything had gone that night. 

He stepped out into the rain, taking Lyndon with him, and tipped his head back as waves of clean water washed over him. Water droplets clung to his eyelashes and he grinned. 

He jumped when a hand smoothed over his shoulder blade. Opening his eyes, he found Lyndon summarily stroking clean water from his skin. His cheeks were still pink but his gaze was lowered and focused. 

Alex let him work as water soaked his hair. He skimmed his own hands over Lyndon's wet body, careful not to touch his stomach where his bladder had been pressed and squeezed more than enough.

"Thank you," Lyndon said when Alex touched him.

Alex smiled. "Stop thanking me."

"I don't think I can."

"Go out with me."

Lyndon looked lost. "Where?"

"For coffee? For whatever. Un-break up with me."

Lyndon looked at him like he was crazy.

"Sorry," Alex said, feeling guilt cut through his giddy mood. "That's not fair. Now's not good."

"I'm disgusting." Lyndon said flatly.

"You're fine. You're comfortable now, right?" Alex asked. "We're good, you and I. We'll sleep good. I'm fucking exhausted."

Lyndon stood there, hair wet and sticking to his neck in the rain. He looked like Alex had punched him. Or rather, he looked like Alex _hadn't_ and he couldn't understand why not. 

After a few moments, Lyndon tried a little hopelessly: "Thank you?"

They returned to the tent shivering, finding it disheveled but no worse for the wear. The sleeping bag he'd saved, Alex unzipped to make a bed large enough for them both in the tent, unwinding the thin blanket from a ball in the corner and throwing it in the center of the bed. Lyndon crawled into this new nest without complaint, and when Alex followed him Lyndon circled his arms around Alex's chest and pressed his nose into Alex's shoulder. 

"Will you be able to sleep?" Alex asked. Lyndon moved his head, but Alex couldn't tell from the feel of it whether he was nodding, or shaking his head, or simply shivering. "Lyndon, talk to me."

Lyndon made a sound like he meant to speak and found he couldn't, which, after the last half hour and apparently the entire evening and night Lyndon had had, Alex didn't find surprising. 

He drew back, freeing Lyndon's face from where he'd tucked it into Alex's neck, and found his eyes were pink. Some of the raindrops on his face might have been tears.

"Why did you do that for me?"

"Well," Alex said. "It seemed like it would help."

Lyndon snorted, and fresh tears wet his face.

"Hey, no, don't cry."

The tears increased in volume. Maybe he had to cry. Deciding this was probably a natural reaction to an unnatural situation, Alex folded his arms around Lyndon and held him as he found release for the second time that night. He stroked Lyndon's hair and thought about 'sometimes not' and all the time he'd spent dating Lyndon, and how close he'd been to asking him to move in with him and wondered if he understood now, or if he just hoped he did. 

They could deal with Lyndon's problems, just as they could deal with Alex's, and he knew Lyndon loved him, just as he knew he'd never stop loving Lyndon, but if Lyndon didn't want that love, there was nothing Alex could do to give it to him. 

He'd taken it tonight. 

When Lyndon's sobs withered into silence he went limp in Alex's arms. 

"You're okay now, yeah?"

"Yeah," Lyndon responded, his voice thicker than usual. "I might start crying again. I don't know."

"Okay," Alex felt a smile tugging at his lips at the warning. "I'm ready whenever."

Lyndon snorted softly but didn't immediately burst into tears, and Alex deemed them both safe for the time being. 

He touched Lyndon's hair, and felt the arms of sleep beginning to crawl up and grasp his tired limbs. He saw the way Lyndon relaxed, boneless in his arms, but his blue eyes remained alert. Alex made a soft, inquiring sound.

"I feel..." Lyndon's eyebrows drew together as he spoke. "I feel comfortable."

Alex's throat grew tight with how novel the concept seemed to Lyndon. He touched his nose to Lyndon's shoulder and tried to breathe normally.

"Good."


End file.
